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While the Federal Reserve added to its December rate rise on Wednesday, it left its median forecasts for three rate rises in 2017 unchanged.

Leading up to the meeting a string of upbeat economic data and hawkish remarks from a handful of Fed speakers had prompted some to expect the Fed’s ‘dot plot’ of interest-rate projections could be revised to reflect four rate rises in 2017, up from its previous estimates of three moves.

The median implies that rates will rise to 1.375 per cent by the end of this year and three quarter percentage point increases in 2018.